


the dizziness of freedom

by IsleofSolitude



Series: unbalanced perfection [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxiety, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has Issues (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Minor Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, to comfort only hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsleofSolitude/pseuds/IsleofSolitude
Summary: It starts like this.God asks Aziraphale a question.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: unbalanced perfection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787134
Comments: 22
Kudos: 124





	the dizziness of freedom

Many things have their origin in the Garden of Eden. Humanity. Earth. Procreation. Sin. 

Aziraphale’s anxiety.

* * *

It starts like this.

God asks Aziraphale a question.

Aziraphale has heard the Almighty speak before, but the Almighty has never spoken to Aziraphale before. There’s a spotlight on him, and Aziraphale is happy to be seen but terrified to be seen now, when he has given away his sword, has lost his charges, has shown kindness to a demon. He loses his breath, ends up stuttering.

The Almighty asks Aziraphale a question, and Aziraphale’s shoulders hunch even as he tries to keep his voice light.

* * *

After Eden, the rules of engagement are...unclear, to put it mildly. Demons and angels break bread together at night and smite each other by sunrise. There’s a lot of messengers and summons and party lines, and Aziraphale is not privvy to most of them, on account of being the angel on the ground. 

So when the demon goes from mocking conversation to eyeing a child, Aziraphale hesitates just long enough for a long line of blood to get torn down a skinny arm before he calls upon his Grace and sends the demon below. 

When he turns to check on the child, it flinches away in fear, and runs screaming for its mother. 

That memory festers long after the child heals.

* * *

Humans have walked the earth for just shy of a hundred years before Aziraphale sees Hellfire in action. 

He, another Principality, and a Power had met up, and been set upon by a legion just a day after leaving the village. There was a bloody fight, and in the chaos of smiting and discorporating, one demon grabbed the Principality and set the flames upon them. 

The screaming had stopped the remaining demons and Aziraphale, but not the Power. As one angel died and one angel fought, Aziraphale froze, watching.

In the morning, faced with birdsong and sunrise and ash, he thought of how cozy and warm it had looked, and then pushes the memory down with a shudder.

* * *

Crowley appeared at his shoulder, ready to fight until Aziraphale didn’t, and then they talked.

Aziraphale almost wished they had fought. That would have given him a reason to not bear witness to the rains and the aftermath. 

(Water and fire, ashes and bloating, quick and slow. Death is death.)

* * *

Heaven becomes more and more empty as years shift by, and Aziraphale doesn’t know how the other angels can stand it. There used to be clouds and stars and gardens and elements and now there’s a stark bleakness. There’s white and shades of pale throughout, but nothing is more piercing than the eyes of Gabriel as they discuss humanity. There’s laugh lines on the archangel’s countenance, but Aziraphale knows how quickly it can become deadly. How just one clever mind can realize Aziraphale is struggling, despite the tasks being completed. 

There’s no place left for Aziraphale in Heaven, so he draws just a little more into himself. 

* * *

He meets Crowley more often, after they stood side by side and mourned a carpenter. 

Crowley is unlike so many others--demons, angels, humans--and he seems to know it. He is quick and clever and fierce, according to reports of others who have skirmished with him. Aziraphale does not understand why Crowley is decent to him, seems to enjoy their talks.

Aziraphale knows that he could spend forever looking at Crowley, so he does not let himself. 

When Crowley looks at Aziraphale, the angel is once again reminded of how it must feel to stand on the edge of Falling--Thrilled and terrified, breathless. He wants to know about the glints in those eyes, why that lip edges into a smirk. The angel wonders how much of the humor is at his expense, wonders what the demon conceals behind those glasses.

(Aziraphale does his best to make sure Crowley doesn’t look at him, and shoves down the disappointment when he succeeds.)

* * *

In time, they reach an arrangement, and Aziraphale doesn’t have to worry about Crowley looking at him because, for some reason, the demon looks  _ after _ him. He doesn’t understand it, but he can’t bring himself to call out and stop it. It makes him feel  _ something _ , something that lights his chest on fire without pain, something that makes him float without going under. The demon prowls around him, guarding and anticipating and plotting, and Aziraphale…

Not having to explain himself, to know that answering a question won’t get him more than a raised eyebrow or a bit of mild argument, to know that whatever Crowley thinks of him Crowley won’t just leave him for being himself….

It’s almost enough. It’s at least a form of happiness.

* * *

He’s reprimanded. Told that miracles are of the Lord, not of his own discretion. That his judgement is being reviewed and in the meantime, he will have to manage himself better. Be better. He’s not enough--he’s too much.

After, he’s dazed. He’s alone and his brain is buzzing and it’s cold in England, it’s cold in the boat, it’s very cold in the prison wearing chains and being spoken to as though he was so very human and useless and ignored. 

Crowley sparks something in him, when he turns and sees, sparks a want that momentarily eases the fog and the cold, takes the edge off the harsh words he’d been given, the sting of Heaven. They eat crepes and catch up. 

Back in England, he’s cold again. Slotting a book into place, Aziraphale wonders if Crowley would flame around him, consume him like Hellfire. It would be okay, he thinks, if it were Crowley. Otherwise it would just be another hurt to suffer alone.

The thought comes and goes for decades. Crowley does not always feature. 

* * *

Crowley asked for holy water. Crowley asked for Holy Water. 

All he can see is a child, screaming for its mother. The face of a celestial as they disappear forever. Bloated bodies bursting as they collide.

Aziraphale shielded Crowley from the first storm, he cannot imagine why Crowley would think asking for Holy Water was something Aziraphale was capable of giving. 

The demon goes to sleep, and the angel forces himself to keep moving. 

* * *

The gentlemen at his club are nice. They are good men, mostly, and those that aren’t don’t stick around. 

They comment on his warm smile but follow it up with shock of his freezing hands.

He wonders how Crowley can sleep after their argument. Aziraphale knows if he were to stop…

Well. No sense in thinking such nonsense.

He learns to dance instead.

* * *

He cannot go to Heaven again. There is nowhere left in him to hide. He is as small as he always felt. The silence looms, the archangels grin, and for all it’s lights there’s no shadows to balance.

They were all sent to Hell, he supposes. 

He misses being warm, but it’s not Hellfire he thinks of being wrapped up in. 

(Angels shouldn’t hold onto anger, let alone to mask the yearning. He knows he’s not a good angel. Knows maybe he’s not the worst.)

* * *

Crowley’s thumb is warm and soft as he takes the books, and Aziraphale for the first time feels certain that he is loved. Knows it. 

There’s no doubt, and he doesn’t  _ understand _ , doesn’t have a frame of reference for that feeling, so he hesitates, then lets it sink into his soul, lets it linger and begin becoming a part of him.

It feels a bit like hope. 

* * *

He hears rumors in Soho. It leaves him remembering, but as he leaves the bookshop, there’s only one thing that matters. 

He hands a demon holy water, and it feels leaving Eden again: new and uncharted, a storm in his stomach and too much in the air to get words in.

Leaving the car when he wants to stay is nothing short of a miracle.

* * *

The Antichrist is on Earth. There are a handful of years left before a war. He takes the laughable form of a gardener, encourages growth and greenery and blooms, entices a toothy smile out of a sullen child, basks in what he can have of a demon. 

His thoughts turn to Eve, apple on her tongue and a baby in her belly, eyes full of pride and wonderment. He remembers Adam, that laughing jaw silent. Those shoulders holding the fates of his family, firm hands clasping a sword steadily.

Sometimes he wondered if choosing to be kind meant he was choosing to fail.

* * *

Their plan was wasted. Armageddon is due any date, and Aziraphale doesn’t think his shoulders are supposed to be this tight. He can’t think, can’t breathe. 

He’s shoved against a wall and that’s enough to restart him, but then he finds a book and doesn’t know what to do.

Heaven is shiny and bright and empty. Maybe he dislikes it because that’s how he wishes he were, but he loves his bookstore for all its clutter and twists. The idea of loving himself is ludicrous, but maybe he can let someone else love him.

But that’s only if they survive, if there’s a world left to live in (Crowley in Heaven would be too much sharpness, too raw for Aziraphale if seen. They would both bleed out.)

(Aziraphale in Hell is an idea that he tries not to think of. It doesn’t cause pain so much as he feels it’s an old friend now.)

* * *

Crowley has never given Aziraphale an ultimatum. Crowley has always known how making decisions can make Aziraphale motionless, if he isn’t completely sure, if he hasn’t thought it over...those decisions  _ tear him apart _ and Crowley  _ knows _ this, has known this for centuries. 

And yet, Crowley stood there, arms out and open, eyes laser focused behind his shades, waiting on Aziraphale to speak.

He can’t protect Crowley, with no sword and softness. And Crowley...with his holy water and his car, always one foot out the door. If Aziraphale doesn’t go with him, would he stay? If he went with him, would Crowley still always be so far away? 

Something shifts, and Aziraphale feels his mouth moving, letting all his cruel thoughts, the ones bouncing around in his brain, flood out, trying to warn Crowley what he would truly be getting into, what Aziraphale has tried to hide from Heaven and Hell, from humans and angels and Crowley, all the doubts and fears and sorrows in his mind.

But he botches it. Directs the storm at Crowley instead of showing him,  _ here is my pain. Here is my doubt. Will you still ask me to come? _

Crowley curls in on himself, pulls away everything that Aziraphale has come to lean on, and leaves him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
> 
> This started because I listened to Badflower's "The Jester", thought it was such an Aziraphale anthem, and then ended up projecting some things onto Aziraphale.


End file.
